ESA’s Solar Orbiter moves 74 million kilometers behind the sun
Launched exactly one year ago, the ESA’s Solar Orbiter is moving behind the sun, at a distance of 74 million kilometers from the star. Currently, the Earth, the Sun and the probe are aligned. This leads, among other things, to a greatly reduced data speed.
The so-called conjunction season will continue until about the middle of this month. The probe’s orbit will bring the Solar Orbiter behind the sun as seen from Earth. During a previous orbit, the probe passed behind the sun, but then there was no conjunction with the sun. The current maneuver has consequences for the speed at which data can be sent to Earth.
According to the ESA, the sun’s energy can disrupt communications in both directions. Also, the interference from the sun makes it difficult for terrestrial dishes, which must focus on a point close to the sun to reliably send and receive signals. During the conjunction, terrestrial mission controllers can receive data at a rate of 255 bits per second and transmit data at approximately 7.8 bits per second, but even at those low speeds, communication can fail altogether. Should contact actually be lost, the various scientific instruments can continue to function autonomously. The collected data is then saved and can be downloaded later.
The Solar Orbiter is currently located 220 million kilometers from Earth and approximately 74 million kilometers from the sun. It is the first time that a probe with a camera has taken such close-up pictures of the sun. During a future orbit around the sun, it will skim past the sun at a distance of only 42 million kilometers. In comparison, Mercury orbits the sun at a distance of about 46 to 70 million kilometers. Another Venus flight is planned for August, followed by a Earth flyby in November.
Previously, the probe has already taken pictures of the surface of the sun, on which ‘campfires’ can be seen. The Solar Orbiter aims to image the sun, observe the solar wind and let us learn more about the solar cycle. The probe includes the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager, which can be used to map the magnetic fields of the sun. Powerful magnetic fields can form the basis of solar winds, which throw charged particles into space that can disrupt, for example, telecom and electricity networks on Earth under certain conditions.
The situation on February 2